Wrestler Wiencek motivated by ‘competitive drive’

Aaron Laube Jon jee Editor Published: February 27, 2012 10:47 AM

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Four John Glenn wrestlers will be attending the district tournament Friday, Feb 24. Among them is senior Carl Wiencek.

Carls fourth place finish in the MVL tournament qualified him for districts for the first time in his wrestling career. That career started in the seventh grade when he joined wrestling at the suggestion of some of his friends on the team. In addition to being a four-year-letterman in wrestling, Carl is also a three-year-letterman in football and en route to becoming a three-year-letterman in track where he runs the 300 hurdles and pole vaults.

Wrestling wasnt always at the forefront of Carls sports life, but he has become further invested in it as his passion for the competition grew. Wrestling started as a supplement for football: get me faster, get me stronger, and it kind of flip-flopped to where football was something to do during the fall when wrestling wasnt going on, said Wiencek.

His successes have been building to this years qualifying tournament for districts as well. Im a two-time darn-near district qualifier and a one-time district qualifier, said Wiencek as he described two of his previous tournament runs, one of which ended in a fifth place finish.

Even though his losses in both of those years were close, Carl takes full responsibility for them. In fact, owning both the losses and the wins is part of what Carl prefers about wrestling. I started to fall in love with wrestling more because all the responsibility is on me; theres no way to spread the blame, he explained.

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Carls competitive drive leads him to challenge himself in his academics as well as athletics. He is a member of NHS, and his schedule for this year includes heavy courses such as college preparatory math, anatomy, physics, and AP English. Hes also taking government but says that Rider makes it sound scarier than it is; its not that bad. He is already forming a tentative court case team with Billy Shaffer, Jacob Troendly, and Michael Janosko. After adjusting his fedora, he tells me the 900-point project doesnt worry him.

Carl has found time to enjoy his school as well. Last semester, most of this was during his foods class. Foods was a fun class because it was a small class and I got to know people I wouldnt have been as close to otherwise, said Wiencek.

Carl plans to pursue either bio-engineering or pre-med at Miami of Ohio or Otterbein and then medical school at Ohio University or OSU. He has been admitted and received scholarships to both Otterbein and Miami but has yet to decide which college to attend.